


Sink to the Bottom

by barricadeur



Series: Sink to the Bottom [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, alcohol use, band au, references to hurricane sandy, this story was inches from being called the association of boners and crying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barricadeur/pseuds/barricadeur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None of them can remember what The ABCs stand for, but it’s the only band name the five of them ever agreed on, so it sticks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

None of them can remember what The ABCs stand for, but it's the only band name the five of them ever agreed on, so it sticks.

They came up with it three days before their first show. Musain, the dive down by the river where Combeferre tended bar four nights a week, had lost its usual Wednesday night act -- a heavy metal Bee Gees cover band, go figure -- and somehow he'd managed to talk the manager into letting their as-yet unnamed act take over the spot. No money, and only two comped drinks from the bar ("That's less than I get when you're trying to make me leave!" Grantaire protested, but no one paid him any mind), but a gig was a gig. Even Enjolras, who dreamed of sold-out stadium shows and changing the world one power chord at a time, was grateful for the opportunity.

"We need a proper name, though," he said, sitting on the couch in Marius and Courfeyrac's apartment with his guitar in his lap. They almost always wound up here after practice -- it was close to the warehouse space, and the Middle Eastern restaurant around the corner stayed open until one-thirty on weeknights.

"Wubbo geyrfubbin attogebba," Grantaire said, around an enormous mouthful of falafel. 

"What?"

Courfeyrac passed him his beer -- a truly selfless act, given the likelihood of it being returned. Grantaire took a long gulp, and Enjolras found himself watching his adam's apple bob as he swallowed twice before setting the bottle back down and wiping his mouth.

Grantaire caught him looking. He'd gotten good at that lately. The corners of his mouth twitched smugly, and Enjolras resisted the urge to throw a balled napkin at his head. "I said, what about Get Your Fucking Act Together?"

"What kind of a band name is that?" Enjolras said.

"I don't know," Grantaire said, "but it's what you're always saying before we play, so I figured you liked it."

He didn't even blink when the napkin smacked him between the eyes.

"We do need something to put on the flyers, though," Combeferre said, after things settled down and they all piled together on the couch or the floor to watch Planet Earth on Marius's sweet projector set-up. "I told my boss I'd tell him tomorrow." 

"We'll figure it out," Enjolras said. Somehow, he'd wound up against the edge of the couch, tucked up with Courfeyrac on his other side. He rolled the neck of his empty beer bottle between his thumb and index finger. Usually, he wasn't a big drinker, but tonight felt different enough that he'd let himself indulge. The alcohol didn't make the churning in the bottom of his chest go away entirely when he thought about singing his words in front of an audience (even the small, disaffected audience of hipsters and alcoholics that the Musain usually pulled), but it did make everything else sort of pliable and wobbly along with it. 

On screen, a group of otters managed to rough up a crocodile, but Enjolras's gaze was drawn to Grantaire, sitting on the floor with his back against the side of the couch, his hands cupped as he lit a joint. The flame from his lighter cast his face in acute angles, scalene triangles. He sucked a long toke, his shoulders pulling in.

Again, Grantaire's gaze met his before Enjolras could look away. "You got something to say," he said, letting out a stream of smoke.

"R," Combeferre rumbled, from the other side of the couch. 

Enjolras just held out his hand. 

Grantaire didn't let himself look surprised for more than a second. Their fingers overlapped as he passed the joint over. 

Enjolras took a drag, letting the smoke curl down into the tiny chambers at the base of his lungs. Again, not something he did normally -- or ever, really, since high school -- but it was worth it for the way Grantaire's eyes widened and darted down to his lips.

"It really is the dawn of a new era," Courfeyrac said. 

Enjolras exhaled, letting his head roll back, and passed the joint to him in exchange for another beer. The exposed ceiling beams wobbled, then righted themselves. 

"We'll vote," he said. His voice sounded slower and older, like he was talking through a record player. "Majority rules."

"The democratic republic of garage punk," Grantaire said, from the floor. Enjolras went to kick him but his calf got stuck against the warmth of Grantaire's side and stayed there for him to lean on. "Mister President."

His last memory of that night: Marius giggling as Grantaire hummed the national anthem.

\--

The next morning, Enjolras woke up with his head pressed into the back corner of the couch and a piece of paper digging into his side.

When he'd managed to sit up and fight off the swell of nausea that immediately accompanied his movement, he shoved two fingers under the waistband of his jeans. A menu from Oasis Grill. He pulled it out, deciding not to speculate as to how it had ended up there. 

Grantaire, curled up at some ridiculous angle in a nest of sweatshirts on the floor, made a sound and kicked one foot out. Somehow his sock had gone missing during the night, and the leg of his jeans had rolled up to bare the flared bone of his ankle.

Enjolras looked down at the menu. It seemed a good enough place to look instead. And on the back, in Marius's fine handwriting with all of their signatures below:

_We the undersigned name our band the ABCs._

\--

When they play, it's part of the banter between songs. Enjolras will step to the mic after their first song, sweeping the hair from his brow that's already slicked down with sweat.

"Thanks for coming," he says, and no matter how raucous the crowd gets when they play, the room goes quiet to listen to him. "We're the ABCs."

And then Courfeyrac will look up from fiddling with the settings on his keyboard, and shout something like:

"The Alien Batman Conspiracy!"

"The Anarchist Billy Crystals!"

"The Anatomically Blessed Club!" (If he's spotted a pretty face in the audience.)

"The Association of Boners and Crying!" (If their practice that day had ended with half their rhythm section storming off to find the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels and their lead guitarist threatening to fire him.)

Enjolras always throws him a glare, for professionalism's sake, but secretly he likes seeing what Courfeyrac will come up with this time. He's pretty sure Courfeyrac knows he's faking it. Their fans always enjoy it; they cheer with every new absurdity, and when Combeferre gets it into his head that they should be trying to sell merchandise at their shows and not just burned CDs of their demos, the buttons with illustrations of Courfeyrac's words sell better than anything else. 

"What's this one?" 

Enjolras is sitting with Courfeyrac at a table at the Musain, watching him sort through a stack of the buttons. Enjolras has their finance spreadsheet open on his laptop, poring over every line to try and find enough money to pay for them to do a small tour. They've been playing shows around town for the last couple of months, building up word of mouth buzz and attracting a steadily growing audience; he's sure that more people will want to hear them, if they can only reach them. It's slow going, though, and the sea of brightly colored buttons spilling over the rest of the table is a potent distraction from figures and sums.

"This one?" Courfeyrac says. He picks up the button Enjolras points to: a tiny dog wearing a suit and tie and sporting a head of very dignified hair. "Alec Baldwin's Chihuahua."

Enjolras hides his smile behind his laptop. He picks up another button at random: two reptiles having sex. "I thought it was Alligators Beat Crocodiles, not bang them."

Courfeyrac shrugs. "It's a more uplifting message." 

The alligator is winking. When Enjolras looks closer, he can see that his scales are actually tiny hearts. 

"I didn't know you drew," he says. "These are really good."

"Oh, it's not me," Courfeyrac says. "It's all Grantaire."

Enjolras sets the button back down. "Grantaire?"

"He went to art school, you know." 

"And flunked out," Enjolras says. 

Courfeyrac's mouth goes sour, but then he's always had a soft spot for Grantaire's fuck ups. "He draws them in his sketchbook, and then copies them out for me to print. He's got dozens -- different angles, different color patterns. It's really amazing."

"I didn't know he paid attention to what we said up there," Enjolras says. Hell, Enjolras didn't even know Grantaire kept a sketchbook. He passes his hands over the collection of buttons, feeling them click softly against his palm. "I just assumed he used the break between songs to drink."

"He always listens to you," Courfeyrac says. 

Enjolras snorts -- wouldn't that make life easier -- but Courfeyrac's not laughing, just watching him. But then Combeferre is coming by to tell them that the Musain is about to open again, and Enjolras never presses the issue.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How The ABCs write a song, in 26 steps.

How The ABCs write a song, in 26 steps:

When people ask the band about their creative process, they're always vague. "We all write parts," Enjolras will say, eager to share the credit, but then no one else seems to be willing to part with the details, so the question sort of dies.

Really, it's a standardized process.

1\. Enjolras comes up with an idea -- or rather, a coherent idea rises from the febrile, volatile network of free associations and half fragments in Enjolras's mind. He writes constantly, carrying in his pocket a slim spiral-bound notebook like that of a newspaper reporter in a black and white detective movie. Snippets of conversation he overhears on the train that somehow scan perfectly over a 3/4 beat; descriptions of how apartment buildings bracket the setting sun on June evenings; impassioned diatribes against the hatred and injustice he sees just walking the streets of his hometown… he fills a notebook every four weeks, easily. 

In college, when he and Combeferre started playing together in bands with names like The Barricades Will Rise and The Blood Of Angry Men, they shuffled through lineups on an almost weekly basis. Band members would join, drawn to Enjolras's enthusiasm and creative spark, only to peel off when they realized that his creativity wasn't a fire -- it was a fire hose, pumping out ninety gallons a minute of concentrated passion without stopping and capable of shattering bone.

He's calmed down a bit with age; he still believes making music can change the world, but he's not so forceful with his opinions. He still wakes up in the middle of the night, hit with an idea, only to find that he's already at his desk with his pen in hand. Nowadays, though, he's learned that it's better to wait until morning before calling a rehearsal to work on it.

2\. Enjolras brings his lyrics to Combeferre and Courfeyrac. If one's not available, he'll go to the other, but usually he likes to hear from both of them together. Combeferre, from years of knowing Enjolras's mind almost too well, can instantly spot the places he's most uncertain about, like a doctor examining an X-Ray for fractures. His laser-precise suggestions always feel revelatory and utterly self-evident at the same time. Courfeyrac, on the other hand, always comes up with something completely off the wall that nevertheless works perfectly. Enjolras figures it has something to do with all the time he spends working with kids -- they're always playing him their favorite new music and giving him inspiration. (Enjolras has so far remained firm about any rap breakdowns in ABCs songs, but Courfeyrac is undeterred.)

3\. Using whatever instruments they have handy -- guitar; bass; keyboard; on one memorable occasion, a kazoo -- the three of them hammer out a basic skeleton of a song.

4\. They bring it to practice to perform for the others. 

5\. Marius adds his own input. While he'd be the first to admit that he's not much of a composer, and his lyrical suggestions usually involve adding more references to love at first sight and other cliches, he has a good ear for harmonies and he writes all his own rhythm guitar parts. He's especially good at simplifying Enjolras and Courfeyrac's grand genre-busting dreams until they're feasible for five guys with stupid haircuts and a MacBook. 

6\. Grantaire mutters something under his breath about the song straining to fit Enjolras's inflated ambitions. 

7\. Enjolras reacts poorly. 

8\. Grantaire doubles down on his criticisms, his apathy turning to spite.

9\. The others try to intervene and calm things down.

10\. And are promptly disregarded.

11\. Enjolras haughtily suggests that perhaps Grantaire's comments would carry more weight if they weren't issued amidst a cloud of vaporized whiskey.

12\. Grantaire asks if one of Enjolras's other brilliant ideas is to turn them into a straightedge cover band, and suggests they all go get XXX's tattooed on the backs of their hands.

12a. ("I actually really like Minor Threat!" Marius whispers to Combeferre, who wisely shushes him.)

13\. "If you're not going to take this seriously, then maybe you should just leave."

14\. "Oh, right, and let you guys go back to using a fucking drum machine."

15\. "At least the drum machine was reliable."

16\. Grantaire throws his sticks at Enjolras's head and storms out. Based on his aim, he probably wasn't even drunk. 

17\. Fuck. Ow. 

18\. Combeferre goes to retrieve an ice pack from the freezer. Courfeyrac goes to coax Grantaire from drinking on the fire escape. Marius goes to text Cosette that he'll be late for their dinner date.

19\. The band reassembles; apologies are exchanged.

20\. "It's a good song, really."

21\. "I know the chorus is a little preachy."

22\. "It's not so bad."

23\. "Do you have any suggestions? For how it could be better?"

24\. "I just play the drums."

25\. "Yeah, but it's your song, too. You're part of this band, and your opinion matters. To me."

26\. The song kicks ass.

\--

Sadly, writing kickass songs isn't enough to pay the bills -- yet, that is. They all have day jobs, more or less. Besides Combeferre at the Musain, Enjolras works at a used book store near his apartment. He's not the best at customer service, but it's the sort of place where the clientele expects you to be standoffish, and he's been working there long enough that somehow his attitude has become part of the decor. Marius sometimes picks up shifts there, too, but he has a rich family and although none of them ever talk about it, Enjolras is pretty sure that they help him out when it comes to rent. 

Courfeyrac is probably the most successful out of all of them; he gives piano and voice lessons to elementary and middle school kids throughout the city. The rich parents pay him well, and he's set up an elaborate sliding scale of payment in baked goods for the ones that wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. It's actually really admirable -- although Enjolras wishes Courfeyrac would stop putting stickers on everything.

"Why do all our set lists smell like bubblegum?" Enjolras gestures with the paper and is hit with another wave of artificial sweetness.

Courfeyrac beams. "It's a scratch-and-sniff!" he says, raking his fingernail over the fuzzy musical note affixed to the top corner. 

"This is the opposite of what I wanted," Enjolras says darkly. 

When he wakes up from a nap covered in gold stars and "You Are #1!" stickers, he has to admit that he brought that one on himself.

No one really knows what Grantaire does for money. He's not homeless, although Enjolras had had his suspicions after he showed up to their first four practices in the same outfit. But when their rehearsal space gets evacuated for Hurricane Sandy, they rent a van and drive Grantaire's drum kit to ride out the storm in his apartment. 

Grantaire directs them to a brownstone building in a neighborhood that's at least five years from being considered "up-and-coming." 

The five of them form a procession to carry the heavy gear up six flights of stairs in a stairwell that smells like cat piss and boiled cabbage. Little children peek out from the other apartments to watch them pass. Grantaire seems to know all of them by name; he yells at them to get back inside and do their homework, and they stick out their tongues at him.

In the apartment, Grantaire's roommate -- a dark-haired girl who sometimes shows up at their shows to stare fixedly at Marius -- directs their efforts with an imperious air, showing them where to set everything down among the labyrinth of stacked vinyl records and... boxes of mannequin parts?

"I'm a window dresser at Urban," she says flatly. They've never spoken before, but somehow he gets the sense that she doesn't like him. He wonders what Grantaire must have told her about him. He doesn't like the way he finds it hard to meet her gaze.

"Oh, that's -- jesus fuck!"

Grantaire waggles the mannequin hand that he'd used to caress Enjolras's cheek. "A celebratory drink, Dear Leader?"

"I told you not to call me that -- and we can't; it's supposed to start raining soon and I don't want to get stuck here," he says, but everyone's hot and thirsty from climbing all those stairs, and no one really listens to him. 

He ends up ducking away to try and find the bathroom and wash up; his hands are covered in radioactive orange dust, as though Grantaire had emptied the crust at the bottom of a Cheetos package over his drum set. (It's not impossible.) 

He tries the first door handle he sees, cupping his palm at an awkward angle to avoiding spreading the powder over everything, and winds up in a bedroom instead.

The lights are off, but a shaft of light from the upturned corner of the curtain reveals a dresser strewn with bottles of various sizes, a poster of David Bowie's _Low_ hung over an unmade bed. Enjolras has heard Grantaire do drunken karaoke to "Changes" a dozen times. There's a book on Grantaire's nightstand, but the cover is obscured. Enjolras hears a burst of laughter from the common room -- Courfeyrac -- and takes a step inside to try and make out the title -- 

"Bathroom's that way."

Enjolras turns around so fast that he hits his elbow on the doorjamb. 

Grantaire's roommate watches as he rubs Cheetos dust into his sleeve.

"Thanks," he says, and hightails it out of there.

They manage to leave just before the roads flood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my gosh, i cannot believe the response this story has gotten so far! i am overwhelmed with love, seriously....never in a million years did i expect this! i wish i could reach out and hug every single one of you. thank you all so much!!!
> 
> basically, this story is just me playing around, but if there are any specific scenes or prompts you'd like to see, please go [tell me](http://barricadeur.tumblr.com/ask) on tumblr.
> 
> (i secretly love minor threat too, marius!)


End file.
